From 85 onwards
By 85 I was well ensconced in the making of music videos and had a productive time working for Chrysalis records and some of their subsiduries
I was asked to make a video for The Housemartins, a band from Hull that was signed to Go! Discs and distributed through Chrysalis Records, for their second single Happy Hour and it was agreed that we would shoot live action and also have the band reproduced as plasticine animated characters by a company called The Giblets. A storyboard was worked out in conjunction with the animators and we then filmed the live action in a pub in St Johns Wood Terrace called The Star. The video starts with the band dressed in suits at the end of the working day at the office; they then do a silly walk into the pub passing Phil Jupitus as they enter the bar (he was working as their press officer at the time). They choreographed themselves turning from gorky office workers into groovy northerners. Then we worked out a number of pub gags that would allow them to turn into animated characters and back again. We shot the live action section in a day but the animators took 3 weeks to shoot their section.
The Housemartins - Think for a Minute This is the second video I made for the band and was scripted by Paul Heaton who wanted to feature Hugh the drummer who was leaving the band (did he walk or was he pushed?) It was the second time I had worked with Simon Archer as my cameraman who did a rather good job. We went on to make many videos together
Caravan of Love became a Christmas no1 for the Housemartins, the video shot in the Union Chapel Islington with ideas provided by Paul Heaton who got the members of the band to have crosses in their hair and to this day I still am not sure if he was taking the piss or has any Christian belief. The song is a cover of an Isley Brothers number
The La's - There She Goes Go Discs signed the band that Lee Mavers formed who was obsessed with getting a 60s sound they re-recorded the album 5 times. I went to Liverpool with Andy McDonald who ran Go Discs and cameraman Dave and we shot te video with two super 8 cameras using daylight then the lights on the car for he evening performance. I like the video for it's simplicity and the youthful enthusiasm of the band but Lee has changed it over the years when he fell out with various members although the video I made is still shown as the original in America.
The La's - Timeless Melody I remember sitting in the back of a car where Lee Mavers was in the front passenger seat and asking him what the video should look like - his answer was "Infinity La" I discussed it with Nic Knowland who lit it for me and we decided on white light to represent infinity
I can prove it - Phil Fearon is a one man music factory, he writes, produces and performs. This video was filmed in a day.
Hot House - Don't Come to Stay this is the first video that Heather Small made and I think she was still a teenager at the time, very shy and rather scared of the process, but what a voice! The backing singers were old hands and later became London Beat and I designed the video based on an old film I love called Jamming the Blues
The Stranglers got arrested in Nice which gave rise to this song. I remember doing a casting session for the female seen in the opening shot with Hugh Cornwall and Jean-Jacques "JJ" Burnel who took a keen interest in the session
I Spy for the FBI - The Untouchables - 1985 A Bostonian Ska band signed to Stiff Records and filmed in Rotterdam as well as Kentish Town in a lovely venue in the Bull and Gate pub sadly now turned into a restaurant.
The Beautiful South - You Keep It All In 1989. Paul Heaton would tell me what he wanted in their videos and I would organise it for them.
We filmed this video in the Rivoli Ballroom, a Wonderfull old venue that has been kept fairly much in it's original 1950s condition - the band got bored during filming and started to play baseball and managed to damage one of the chandeliers - The seaside sequence was filmed in Worthing
Always Something This was the last of the Housemartins singles as they had decided to disband with two of them going onto form The Beautiful South, Norman Cook starting off on his own and later becoming Fatboy Slim and Stan Cullimore who then ran a health food shop before becoming a journalist. The band wanted to recreate their memories of school and perform as teachers in the video. We found a catholic school in East Finchley that allowed us to use their premises and were surprised to find the school had a well stocked bar. Perhaps the most fun was had filming the staff room which for people of our generation was always filled with smoke the band played their interpretation of teachers trying to be pop stars. The band gave me a cameo roll as the school caretaker and I also appeared briefly in their video compilation as well as the video for Me and the Farmer The catering was done by Kevin Allen went on to direct the Welsh cult classic Twin Town
Timex Social Club - Mixed Up World I got a lot of my work during the eighties from Chrysalis Records who were representing Timex Social Club at the time which turned out to be one guy, Michael Marshall, who was writing songs and performing to help pay his way through college- it was early days in video editing with the equipment hugely expensive so that editing “on line” was priced at something like £250 an hour. I had conceived an idea that the world was square and the artist would interact with it in a cartoon relationship. I have always been a big fan of cartoons and I like working on green screen so I can play with the elements — my memories are a little vague but I must have scripted the song pretty tightly as we have the square world chasing the artist then the box becoming the various faces of the performer singing both the lead and the backup vocals, with the box at times being physically big enough for him to exit, stand upon and interact with. From my memory we then spent two days in online with the whizz operator of the time Mark Alchin who had been shipped in from Australia to work in the newly formed Soho post production house
Martin Stevenson and the Dainties. Boat to Bolivia. We recorded this video in The Venue in New Cross and my foremost memory is that the grips used a pulley system to get the crane we were hoping to use up to the second floor hall and the thing broke sending the arm of the crane crashing down and making it unusable. Simon Archer was the lighting cameraman and I like the feel of the video
Debbie Harry - Free to Fall Blondie had broken up and Chrysalis decided to Launch Debbie as a solo artist. I went to meet her and Chris Stein in the Savoy Hotel where the record company had arranged for them to stay although they told me they would have preferred to be in Notting Hill which was a lot more street in those days
James Ingram - I don"t have the Heart. James was in London to help out on an album the Brunei Royal family were producing and part of his payment was to make this video
Jethro Tull - Steel Monkey Ian Anderson was one of the first artists on Chrysalis Records which set the company up. Jethro Tull was a huge success with Ian renowned for playing the flute while standing on one leg. True to the name he chose for his stage act Ian bought a farm in Berkshire and also had a fish farm in Scotland and would use his pop persona to maintain his income. The video was filmed on a building in Canary wharf which was full of largely empty buildings at the time
The Butterfield 8 - Watermelon Man. Terry Edwards and Mark Bedford formed this band and the video is a mixture of a tribute to "Jammin the Blues" and having fun with stop frame animation. The video was lit by Harriet Cox and has a cameo appearance from Phil Jupitus - the two piano players I went on to make an instructional video with "How to play Boogie and Blues Piano"
Word Party - Private Revolution - World Party is a band formed by Karl Wallinger where he recorded a whole album playing all the parts himself then put a band together to perform it including Sinead O'conner and Guy Chambers
A fantastic song by Karl Wallenger which we filmed in a studio then added library footage of disasters along with the animated boat going through a sea of newspaper - Joan the animated started putting messages in the animation reading Joan is bored, Joan is very bored .... my relationship with Karl initially was very good but at some point he signed to Prince’s management and a Steve Fargnoli who arrived outside the edit suite in Camden saying Karl wasn't happy with an edit, he refused to elaborate and insisted on staying in his car and remaining on a satellite phone to talk to the states. Karl arrived a little later and we made the adjustments he required, from then on the relationship began to fall apart and we filmed a part of the video for God on my Side with a fun procession across Camber beach then went into a studio where my art director had constructed his vision of heaven - Karl accused him of ruining heaven.
The Pogues - Dirty Old Town I was sent by Dave Robinson to meet thee band in a pub in Camden with the instruction to film them performing by the canal. they said "we are not doing it we want Neil Jordon to make our video". Phone calls were made and in the end they greed to be filmed on the stage at the Fridge in Brixton - The tape of the video survived on our office shelf under te tittle Dirty Old Teeth.